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Monday, 26 October 2015

Bloggers United AU recently held its inaugural Sydney Event at the Cambridge Hotel in Surry Hills and I felt extremely lucky to be among the 40 Sydney bloggers who attended this amazing event.Bloggers United AU was founded by Jasmine from Sweetaholic Beauty and Nikita from NJT Blogger. Bloggers United AU states its aims as being: "To make an amazing Australian community even better, to support all bloggers and help them gain more exposure, meet other people in the blogging community and to have fun doing what they love - blogging!"

The Bloggers United AU Sydney Team

The format of the Sydney event consisted of presentation sessions from the numerous, predominantly beauty brands, present. In between the sessions there were display tables set up around the room that bloggers could wander around and gather more information from, sampling some of the brands' products.

Breaks were also utilised for meeting other bloggers in real life, who we may have only met online in the past! I was so excited to finally meet and sit next to the gorgeous Kimba from Kimba Likes, one of the very first bloggers I started following! I can happily share she is as lovely in real life as she is on her blog and social media!

Lisa advised us that Kryolan has long been a favourite brand of professional makeup artists and is frequently used in theatre and television makeup. Kryolan is celebrating their 70th anniversary this year!

Lisa also spoke about Jean d'Arcel, another well established brand, with an emphasis on restorative skin care.

Bloggers United AU Sydney Event Presenter Lisa from 360PR

Kryolan Display At Bloggers United AU Sydney Event

Lauren from Ego Pharmaceuticals was the next presenter. Ego Pharmaceuticals covers a large range of brands including QV Skin Care, SunSense, Aqium, MOOV and more. The brand Lauren spoke to us about at the event was the Elucent Whitening range of products. This range contains no bleaching ingredients but is all about creating an even skin tone and restoring your complexion. It is suitable for sensitive skin and sounds perfect for my ageing 40+ year old skin - yay! Look out for a future blog post about these products!

Bloggers United AU Sydney Event Presenter Lauren From Ego Pharm

Elucent Products Received At The Bloggers United AU Sydney Event

Weleda is a comprehensive, natural, biodynamic, organic and fair trade beauty, hair care, skin care and baby care brand! Sabine advised us that Weleda was founded in 1921 by Dr Rudolf Steiner.

I love Dr Steiner's quote :"The human body has the power to heal itself - it just needs a little bit from nature."Sabine advised us that Weleda's best selling product is Skin Food which amazingly has remained unchanged since 1926! It was the second ever product Dr Steiner made and it is reportedly loved by Victoria Beckham, Adele and Rihanna! I'm always curious to try products that celebrities love!

Weleda Product Display At Bloggers United AU Sydney Event

Weleda Goodies Received From The Bloggers United AU Sydney Event

Kerrie from BeautyNext then presented us information about the exciting NYX coloured mascaras and also the soon to be released (in February 2016) Intense Butter Lip Gloss. She then handed around a lucky dip bag full of the Butter Lip Glosses out of which we were all able to pick one. I ended up with a pretty summery pink shade called Merengue. These lip glosses are very aptly named, mine definitely felt like it simply melted onto my lips when I applied it. NYX is stocked in Target stores.

NYX Cosmetics Australia Colored Mascaras

Chantalle then presented about two of my favourite brands, firstly the established RosehipPLUS brand and then the new to Australia Natura Siberica brand.RosehipPLUS has a range of skincare products all 100% pure and natural, and containing the "miracle" Rosehip Oil grown in the southern Andes in Chile. RosehipPLUS have just recently launched a new product, RosehipPLUS Organic Daily Cream Cleanser, which is reportedly great for removing waterproof makeup and eye makeup. I'll be putting it to the test later this week!I have previously reviewed the RosehipPLUS product range here.

RosehipPLUS Product Display

Natura Siberica products are ICEA certified organic with unique ingredients consisting of wild harvested herbs and flowers sourced from Siberia. As their base ingredient they all contain Siberian pine seed oil which is very rich in Vitamin E and Vitamin F, in fact it's 3 times richer in this than cod liver oil! Luckily the Natura Siberica product range is also very affordable with nothing over $30! I love that!

Natura Siberica Product Display

Galina from Elements Bioactive was the next presenter. She described skin care as being "skin insurance" and protection of your skin for the future. Elements Bioactiv does not use any ingredients that could be toxic or harmful to your skin, it doesn't test on animals and doesn't use any synthetic fragrances.

Skin is our body's largest organ and interestingly Galina showed us a 2 squared metre piece of fabric and advised us that this is how much skin an average adult has. She then showed us a banana peel to demonstrate the thickness of our skin.

Elements Bioactiv is a skincare range that is used by professional beauty therapists. I haven't used these products before and am looking forward to using the three products we were gifted from this range.

Elements Bioactiv Products

During this event we all had the opportunity to have a mini makeover using the Williams Pro Makeup range. Azzi Williams, an international makeup artist and the creator of this brand introduced us to her amazing Zero Powder which launched in August 2015.

Zero Powder is an all-in-one translucent setting, finishing and HD powder with 100% natural ingredients. It blurs imperfections and helps keep skin clear, youthful and healthy! It locks in your makeup to make it last longer and photograph better.

This product has zero talc, zero paraben, zero silica, and results in zero camera flashback. It's a product I definitely need but didn't quite know how much, until I tried it!

Williams Pro Makeup also has some exciting new products in the pipeline including a highlighter and lip setting & mattifying powder.

Bloggers United AU Presenter Azzi Williams From Williams Pro Makeup

Williams Pro Makeup Zero Powder & Kabuki Brush

The final presenter was Yong Li, the CEO from Enbacci, a luxury unisex skin care brand she developed with her mum. Yong Li described her long haul flight Enbacci skin care regime consisting of the Rejuvenating Essence Mist, a Detoxifying Clay Mask (which is nude in colour and goes clear on), a moisturiser and the Enbacci Moisturising Hand & Nail Cream. Now if only I had a long haul flight planned! Luckily my skin will benefit from these products on land as well!

Enbacci CEO Yong Li

Enbacci Products

As if all the above presentations, networking and product sampling were not enough, at the end of the day all the brands present, as well as brands who'd been unable to make it on the day, gifted us with generous goodie bags of products. Thank you so much to all the brands and PRs involved! I will be trialing, reviewing, photographing and blogging about these products in the upcoming days, weeks and months!

Bloggers United AU Sydney Event Goodie Bag Contents!

I would also like to say a big thank you to the four Bloggers United AU Sydney Event team members for all their hard work and dedication in putting this event together. It was much appreciated!

Sunday, 25 October 2015

All bloggers are welcome to join in and link up a makeup or beauty related post each.All non-bloggers are also most welcome to join the party and enjoy reading the fabulous range of beauty blogs by the many amazing bloggers that all link up here each week.

Monday Makeup Madness #29 Link Up Party

The aim of the Monday Makeup Madness link up party is to share some beauty blogger love, strengthen our beauty blogger community, help all our blogs be seen by new readers and also enable our readers to discover some wonderful new beauty products and blogs.

Last week we had 20 lovely beauty bloggers link up a beauty related post each. The three most viewed posts from last week's link up party plus one of my favourite posts were:

Popular Posts From Monday Makeup Madness #28 Link Up Party

Lily Not Louise blog linked up a popular and informative post about the value of night creams, featuring the Boots Laboratories Serum7 Regenerating Night Cream.

Fabulous and Fun Life blog's OPI Venice Collection swatches and review post was also well read last week. I was green with envy reading in the comments section how many readers have been to Venice! It is at the very top of my travel wishlist. In the meanwhile I'm loving using OPI's Venice Collection nail lacquers!

After reading Michelle's blog post on Skinn by Dimitri Sugar Lip Scrubs on IndieAna - In Search of the Holy Grail blog I've started applying lip scrub a lot more frequently again, which is why this is my pick of the linked posts from last week!

I'd love you to join this week's Monday Makeup Madness link up and if your post is one of the three most clicked upon I'll feature it in next week's link up post. I'll also pick one other linked post to feature. The rules of the link up are simple:

If you would like to pin your linked posts to the Monday Makeup Madness pinterest group board follow Fabulous Fun Life on pinterest (this is a pinterest requirement not mine) and I'll invite you to join this board as a co-pinner. All bloggers who participate in the Monday Makeup Madness link up party are welcome to become co-pinners of this group board. It's another great way to get your posts seen by new readers.

Finally, please share the link to this Monday Makeup Madness link up party on your blogs & social media accounts to help get the word out among more beauty bloggers, inviting them to join in & share some beauty blogger love with us! We will all benefit from more link up party participants and readers. I absolutely love discovering new beauty blogs to read, comment on and follow!

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

I love Christmas! I love everything about it! I love the Christmas lights, the Christmas decorations, the Christmas food, the Christmas spirit and even the planning, creation and shopping of special presents for my loved ones.I love making Christmas a special and memorable time of year for my family and friends, and every year in the lead up to Christmas I can be found making special Christmas decorations and food, nowadays with my teenage daughter's eager assistance. She has definitely inherited my love of Christmas, my love of craft and my love of pretty things!As a result, even though I'm predominantly a beauty blogger, when the opportunity arose to attend Spotlight's 2015 Make It Merry Christmas launch I couldn't attend fast enough!The highlight of the Spotlight launch for me was definitely the opportunity to get hands-on, using some of the Spotlight Christmas craft supplies first hand at the launch.

This included Christmas card making. Spotlight stocked, Jolly & Joy, have a wide range of Christmas themed stickers, glitter and bling stick-ons that make beautiful cards easy to create even for young children. Here's one I made. Of course the beauty blogger in me couldn't resist adding a couple of touches of bling!

My Quick & Easy Christmas Card Creation

I then had a go at creating Christmas decorated biscuits using Wilton fondant. I never realised before how easy it was to decorate cakes and biscuits with fondant. Look at my creation!

Creating Christmas Decorated Biscuits

Tips are to dust cornflour onto your hands, the surface you are rolling the fondant out on and your roller before you begin. Brush water onto the back of the edible decorations to stick them onto the fondant. For the tiny balls tweezers are required.

You can either bake your own biscuits or just cheat, like I intend to, and decorate store bought biscuits! Shhh, don't tell! Everyone will be so impressed by the decorating they won't care who baked the biscuit!Here's a biscuit decorated with Wilton Green Decorating Icing which comes ready made in a pouch with a round and star tip included. The lovely ladies from Zoratto Enterprises who were demonstrating the Wilton products made this. I received a red and green pouch of this icing in my goodie bag and my daughter and I will be making these for our extended family Christmas celebrations.

Wilton Icing Decorated Christmas Tree Biscuit

Another effective yet easy Christmas decorating craft is painting Jolly & Joy ready made paper mache angels, baubles and stars and then decorating them with glitter and bling stick-ons. Here's a star and angel I decorated with blingy stick-ons once again, of course!

Creating Christmas Tree Decorations

At the Spotlight Christmas launch I was also introduced to the Heidi Swapp MiNC Foil Transfer Machine! OMG! This machine is amazing! You can foil any design that you can print on a laser printer. The possibilities for creating foiled Christmas place setting cards, photos, cards, wall art etc are endless! You are only limited by your own creative imagination.

Heidi Swapp MiNC Foil Transfer Machine

Here's the Heidi Swapp Marquee Winter Xmas Tree Light Kit decorated using the MiNC Foil Transfer Machine. No, unfortuantely I can't lay claim to having done this myself, it was already a completed example at the launch.I love the green foil leaves!

Decorated Heidi Swapp Marquee winter Xmas Tree Light Kit

As expected Spotlight also has an extensive array of Christmas fabrics in-store including loads of Jolly & Joy Flat Fats. Here's an example of a Christmas stocking that my daughter is enthusiastically tempted to make for all our family members! Doesn't the pom-pom embellishment look fabulous!

Christmas Stocking

During the launch we were advised that Spotlight has brought in an astronomical $30 million worth of Christmas craft supplies and products to be sold this Christmas season across all its Spotlight stores! In other words it is likely you will find every Christmas craft related item you have ever dreamed of, plus a whole lot more, in Spotlight stores now!In conclusion, because I know my enthusiasm for Christmas is making this post way too looooong, at the launch it was announced that Spotlight's Christmas tree decorations this season fall into three categories:

If you are looking for further DIY Christmas inspiration I highly recommend The Australian Women's Weekly Craft Make It Christmas book pictured below which I received in my event goodie bag. It's full of easy and creative crafty ideas for Christmas.

The Australian Women's Weekly Craft Make It Christmas Book

For the curious among you, photographed below is the rest of the contents of my event goodie bag! These Spotlight items are going to result in hours of fun and creativity for myself and my three children during the next school holidays! They'll especially love the Spray Dye Kit and my daughter has already claimed the two cute lip glosses!

Spotlight Christmas Launch Goodie Bag Contents

Thank you so much Spotlight and Kids Business for inviting me to the Spotlight Make It Merry Christmas Launch event and for the generous goodie bag. It is very much appreciated!

Are You Planning to DIY Christmas Decorations, Cards & Biscuits This Year?

Before I review the Heat Kissed fragrance itself let's just take a moment to fully appreciate and admire this fragrance's beautiful red-hot packaging and promotion!

Beyonce Heat Kissed Fragrance and ChocolArts Chilli Chocolate Kisses

Beyonce's Heat Kissed fragrance is bottled in its signature sleek Heat bottle, this time in a rich crimson hue embodying the scent's seductive spirit. There is a luxurious looking gold band around the neck of the bottle with Beyonce's name engraved on one side and "HEAT" engraved on the opposite side. The top of the lid has Beyonce's signature "B" carved on it.

The outer packaging is also stunningly designed, being a very deep dark burgundy and depicting a pair of luscious, blazing red lips, which appear to be radiating heat, ripe for a kiss! The gold embossed print labeling adds another touch of luxury.

Coty Australia very cleverly, and generously, further reinforced this fragrance's sultry and seductive red-hot spirit by gifting blogger media with a luxurious box of handcrafted ChocolArts dark chocolate chilli kisses to celebrate the launch of Beyonce Heat Kissed. And let me tell you, those gourmet chilli chocolates were every bit as temperature-raising and mouth wateringly delicious, as they look!

I found Beyonce Heat Kissed to be a beguiling fragrance, which I could totally imagine Beyonce herself wearing. After the top fruity notes dissipated, the vanilla, sandalwood and patchouli notes came to the fore and endured, leaving a subtle, sultry sweetness lingering on my skin. To help the fragrance endure longer when I am out all day I also spritz some onto my clothes.

I really loved this fragrance! Beyonce Heat Kissed will definitely be a high rotation fragrance for me during the warmer spring and summer months, especially in the evenings .....

Beyonce Heat Kissed

Thank you so much Coty Australia for the opportunity to trial this amazing fragrance and celebrate its launch with such mouth watering chocolates.Beyonce's Heat Kissed Eau de Parfum is the sixth fragrance in Beyonce's fragrance range. It was released in Australia on 1 October 2015.Click HERE to buy Beyonce's Heat Kissed Eau de Parfum from Priceline. If you hurry now it should still be on special - Yay!You can clickHERE to buy the Beyonce Heat Kissed Set 3 Pack including Heat Kissed EDP 30ml, Shower Gel 75 ml & Body Lotion 75 ml. Hurry because this is currently on special too!

Do you choose your fragrance according to the mood (eg playful or seductive etc) you are in? What's your current favourite fragrance?

Sunday, 18 October 2015

All bloggers are welcome to join in and link up a makeup or beauty related post each.All non-bloggers are also most welcome to join the party and enjoy reading the fabulous range of beauty blogs by the many amazing bloggers that all link up here each week.

Monday Makeup Madness #28 Link Up Party

The aim of the Monday Makeup Madness link up party is to share some beauty blogger love, strengthen our beauty blogger community, help all our blogs be seen by new readers and also enable our readers to discover some wonderful new beauty products and blogs.Last week we had 19 beauty bloggers link up a beauty related post each. The three most viewed posts from last week's link up party plus one of my favourite posts were:

Popular Linked Posts From The Monday Makeup Madness #27 Link Up Party

Kats Colourings review of the Urban Rituelle 'Comfort' Fragrance Reed Diffuser was a popular post. I am totally a fragrance lover, whether these be fragrances for me or fragrances for the home. The sound of a comforting scent for the home is so appealing.

We were all eager to read about Max The Unicorn's Adore Beauty Haul and Gifts With Purchase. How cute was The Balm products' packaging! I'm adamant I'm going to start being smarter with my beauty shopping and look out for more Gifts With Purchase.

Christina from Love That Lippie impressed and motivated a lot of us with her house AND makeup decluttering!

Finally my pick for this week, which was also well read by a lot of you, was Magda of Beauty Bucket List's review of the Make Up Geek Duochrome Eye Shadows. These products looked GORGEOUS!

I'd love you to join this week's Monday Makeup Madness link up and if your post is one of the three most clicked upon I'll feature it in next week's link up post. I'll also pick one other linked post to feature. The rules of the link up are simple:

If you would like to pin your linked posts to the Monday Makeup Madness pinterest group board follow Fabulous Fun Life on pinterest (this is a pinterest requirement not mine) and I'll invite you to join this board as a co-pinner. All bloggers who participate in the Monday Makeup Madness link up party are welcome to become co-pinners of this group board. It's another great way to get your posts seen by new readers.

Finally, please share the link to this Monday Makeup Madness link up party on your blogs & social media accounts to help get the word out among more beauty bloggers, inviting them to join in & share some beauty blogger love with us! We will all benefit from more link up party participants and readers. I absolutely love discovering new beauty blogs to read, comment on and follow!

Monday, 12 October 2015

Sparkling canals, crisscrossed by bridges and a maze of alleys and hidden piazzas. I would love to visit Venice, especially during the Venice Carnival season which is renowned for its extravagant balls with opulent costumes and bejewelled masks. That would be the life!

Unfortunately however my budget doesn't stretch to such luxurious holidays currently so I'll have to get my dose of Venice in a different form! That's where OPI's latest luxurious nail polish collection, the Venice Collection comes in!

OPI Venice Collection

The OPI Venice Collection was released to coincide with the European Fall/Winter 2015. This bold and elegant collection consists of 12 new shades which will be added to the permanent OPI colour family.

The collection includes romantic reds, striking corals, dreamy pastels, elegant nudes, dramatic darks and a luxurious shimmery copper metallic. Even though all these shades are reportedly designed for fall and winter, some of the pastels, nudes, metallics and corals would also be perfect for our Australian Spring & Summer. Yay!

Although I don't have the full 12 colours to show you I was lucky to receive the Little Bambinos Mini 4-Pack including the shades A Great Opera-Tunity, Worth a Pretty Penne, Amore at the Grand Canal and My Gondola or Yours?

A Great Opera-tunity

"Aria" ready to wear this gorgeous melon? This is a pretty nude, dusty peachy shade that applies easily and is opaque and streak free with two coats.

OPI Venice Collection: A Great Opera-tunity

Worth a Pretty Penne

Flaunt your fashion "cents" in this shimmery copper. This is my favourite shade in the OPI Venice collection. It's a luxurious looking, slightly rose-tinted, coppery metallic. Once again it is a fabulous formula requiring only two coats.

OPI Venice Collection: Worth a Pretty Penne

Amore at the Grand Canal

Let the romance flow in this ravishing red. OPI excels at creating perfect reds and this one is no exception. It's a very flattering classic blue-red shade.

OPI Venice Collection: Amore at the Grand Canal

My Gondola or Yours?

Let's cruise the canals in this luscious black.This is a smoky black with a gorgeous but very, very subtle shimmer in it. The shimmer is more noticeable in sunlight and is hard to see indoors. This shade requires three coats to achieve a non streaky opaque colour.

About Me

Hi, my name is Ingrid and I believe in looking fabulous and having fun at every age, including in your 40s and beyond!
I hope I can encourage, inspire and motivate you and in turn, also be encouraged, inspired and motivated by you, to live the most fabulous and fun life possible.
xxx
Ingrid